Category: Consumer Products

The Case of the Collapsing Seat: Weak Standards and No Oversight Led to a Fatal Defect

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A renown seat safety expert has called on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Veterans Administration to institute random spot checks to ensure that mobility scooter and other powered wheelchair devices intended for the disabled meet minimum voluntary safety standards – and publicize any compliance failures to warn the public. Dr. Kenneth J. Saczalski, who has been at the forefront of seat strength issues for decades, made his call to action today at a meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.

Saczalski was retained by Miami attorney David Bianchi on behalf of the family of Carolyn Sorenson to determine what caused a scooter seat back to break in a products liability case against the U.S. distributors of the Daytona GT3 Electric Scooter. In January 2009, 64-year-old Sorenson died from positional asphyxiation in the trash room of her condominium building, when the plastic molded seat of her mobility scooter fractured and collapsed, causing her to fall backwards. Sorenson’s lower half remained belted in what was left of the seat, while her upper torso was wedged behind her against the door frame, according to police reports. Continue reading →

Product Safety Takes a Big Leap Forward

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Just before Thanksgiving, a majority of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission gave consumers an early holiday present, approving a Final Rule that will establish a publicly accessible consumer product safety complaint database. For the first time since the commission was created, manufacturers will no longer control the flow of information about their products. By spring, consumers will be able to report their own complaints and research others via a web interface. Continue reading →

The Right Way and the Wrong Way

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On the eve of a vote on a Final Rule to establish the new database, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioners Anne Northup and Nancy Nord, have proposed an alternative to newly mandated consumer product safety database from that recommended by the staff. In a recent blog post entitled, “A Wrong Way and a Right Way – Which Will We Choose?” Commissioner Nord details the specific aspects of the database rule that prompted this Hail Mary pass: who can submit complaints and inaccurate information.

“Congress provided us with a list of those whose complaints should go up on the public database.  We have contorted the plain language Congress used into definitions that have no meaning.  For example, Congress told us to accept complaints from “consumers.”  The majority has determined that since everyone consumes something, we need to accept complaints from everyone—no need for any relationship to the product, harm or incident.  Think plaintiff lawyers trolling for clients or unscrupulous competitors wishing to harm a product’s reputation,” Nord writes. Continue reading →

CPSC Puts Information in Hands of Consumers

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After taking comments from the public, and by that we mean, the remarks of a handful of advocates and consumers and the complaints of 33 trade organization reps and business owners, the U.S. Product Safety Commission is now preparing to vote on a Final Rule to establish a consumer complaint database.

The database represents a sea-change in the accessibility of consumer product information, wresting control from manufacturers, who held sway over the flow of public information for nearly three decades.

SRS President Sean Kane, who testified before the CPSC at a public hearing on the database, urged the agency to build a public database by fusing sufficient detail on the product and problem and public availability of the data in a timely fashion. Continue reading →

Segway to Serious Injuries

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The death last month of Segway Inc. CEO James Heselden, in a crash while aboard the personal transporter, has highlightedboth the dangers of the two-wheeled conveyance and a new study charting the rise of Segway-related injuries in one Washington, D.C. hospital.

Heselden, the new British owner of the Bedford, New Hampshire-based company was aboard a rugged-terrain Segway touring his North Yorkshire estate, when he plunged over a cliff and into the River Wharfe. On the heels of Heselden’s death, the Annals of Emergency Medicine published online a study of emergency-room Segway injuries over a three-and-a-half-year period. Continue reading →

Could Crib Tents Become a Regulated Product?

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On December 27, 2008, the strangulation death of Noah Thompson by a Tots In Mind crib tent became the first to be investigated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission involving this unregulated product. Eighteen months later, in July, the commission and the manufacturer finally announced a recall featuring a repair remedy for the attachment clips.

The Thompson case underscores two continuing weaknesses in the regulatory framework meant to ensure the safety of juvenile products: long gaps between the time when a product is deemed hazardous and a recall, and the difficulty in dealing with baby products that fall outside of the CPSC regulations and are not manufactured to any voluntary or mandatory standard.

The CPSC says that the Tots In Mind recall may only be the first action it takes to protect toddlers from the design deficiencies of crib tents. Continue reading →

Jury Finds Sunbeam’s Improved Electric Blanket Circuit Still Doesn’t Fail Safe

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A Missouri federal court jury has found Sunbeam Products, Inc. partially responsible for serious burn injuries suffered by a bed-bound elderly woman who was sleeping under one of its electric blankets, when the blanket caught fire.

Barbara Kay of Morgan County, Missouri was sleeping under a Sunbeam electric blanket on October 28, 2008 when it ignited, severely burning 35 percent of her body. Kay had been invalided by a stroke 10 years earlier, which had paralyzed the left side of her body. Kay was also a smoker who smoked in bed, and kept her cigarettes, lighter and ash trays on a tray positioned on her right side, along with the controls for her hospital bed and electric blanket. At about 7 a.m., Kay awoke to pain on her left side and saw flames leaping out of the left side of the bed near her leg and hip. Kay, who was in her 70s, recuperated in the hospital for five months, but lost part of her left arm, as a result of her burns.

Fire department investigators determined that fire originated on the left side of the hospital bed, and narrowed the source of ignition to the blanket or a cigarette, but concluded that a burning cigarette was most likely the source of the fire.

In late June, however, a civil jury concluded that the blanket played a role in the fire, and in awarding Kay $2 million in compensatory damages, assigned one third of the blame to Sunbeam. In the second phase of the trial, the jury heard evidence of Sunbeam’s $1.9 billion net worth, to determine punitive damages. George McLaughlin, who represented the Kays with co-counsel James Crispin, asked for $1 each for the 30 million blankets Sunbeam had sold. But before the jury could decide, Sunbeam and the Kays reached a confidential settlement. Continue reading →

CPSC Workshop on Building a Public Database Less Adversarial

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The tone was less adversarial and more collegial as the U.S. Product Safety Commission held its first public workshop (see The End of the World as We Know it!) on the establishment of a Public Consumer Product Safety Incident Database this week.

Perhaps that was because the Commissioners did not attend – nor did some of the database’s most strident opponents. Instead, what unfolded over two days was a work/brainstorming session, with CPSC staffers gathering the collective wisdom of the stakeholders.

Safety Research & Strategies President Sean Kane, who appeared at the behest of the Commission, was a frequent panelist. Manufacturers and public advocates (Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Kids in Danger, and Public Citizen) alike hashed out what they’d like to see in the database.  Adding to the mix was panelist George Rutherford, retired CPSC staffer, who offered some sorely needed reality checks.

The End of the World as We Know it

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The very best consumer products complaints database would be one which allows manufacturers to thoroughly vet each complaint – no matter how many years it takes; one that would be accessible to the public, unless that member of the public is a plaintiff’s attorney or a reporter; or one that prohibits complaints that might tarnish an industry’s reputation. In other words, a database that preserves the status quo.

At least, that’s how manufacturers see it. The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission held the first of several public hearings Wednesday on the creation of a publicly accessible and searchable consumer complaints database, now required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

Under the infamous Section 6B of the Consumer Product Safety Act, manufacturers basically have all the control when it comes to allowing the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to disclose negative information about their products. The provision allows a company to wash any data it deems “inaccurate” and even allows a manufacturer to sue to prevent the release of such information. The creation of a publicly accessible database means that manufacturers are no longer the gatekeepers of information.

At Wednesday’s hearing, six industry representatives wasted no time in warning the commission about the barbarians at the gate: trial lawyers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and attorneys for the garage door and home appliances industries carefully wrapped their arguments around the concept of “accuracy.” Rick Woldenburg, the head of an educational toy company, and a vociferous critic of the CPSIA, went for the jugular, warning that the database could become “a breeding ground” for litigation, and touch off a “feeding frenzy” at the plaintiff’s bar.

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Newly-appointed Democratic Commissioner Bob Adler reminded industry that the CPSIA database was not going to be perfect, nor built on the foundation of manufacturers’ worst fears.

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Lawyers from Public Citizen, the Consumers Federation of America and Consumer Union countered that a database would restore some of the balance and transparency to the process and generally applauded the mandate.

Safety Research & Strategies President Sean Kane injected some much needed reality into the proceedings. He reminded the CPSC that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has hosted a publicly accessible complaints database for years without bringing the auto industry to its knees. He also showed them how SRS’s model, the Vehicle Safety Information Resource Center (VSIRC) database, took the scattered NHTSA data and transformed it into a useful tool with a simple, user-friendly interface.

Newly appointed commissioner Anne Northup, who apparently was charged with handling the left field, was not persuaded. She had spent most of the hearing querying each panelist if they thought the commission could be sued for posting inaccurate information on its new database. But she tipped her hand after Kane’s presentation. Apparently Commissioner Northup actually feared for the liability of manufacturers. She accused Kane of shilling for plaintiff’s lawyers and ventured that the new database could create opportunities for lawsuits. Wielding her Blackberry like an avenging sword, Northup read from what she said was SRS’s website, with copious links to victims’ attorneys. It was not SRS’s website. But Northup wasn’t about to let the facts get in the way of her point. When Kane tried gently to correct her, she admonished him: “Don’t interrupt me.”

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Kane also corrected Northup’s premise: Data doesn’t create lawsuits. Lawsuits over a death or serious injury prompt the government to collect the data to see if further action is needed, he told her.  But don’t let the facts get in your way.

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Pet Doors: A Little Known Gateway to Childhood Injury and Deaths

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ORLANDO, FLORIDA – Matthew Ranfone was only two years old when he slipped out of his Orlando home, into an enclosed patio area and through a pool fence into the backyard pool. His parents found him minutes later floating face down. Matthew died 13 days later from the injuries sustained in the near drowning.

It’s a scenario well-known to a handful of child injury specialists – especially those who study the morbidity data in warm weather states. In fact, since 1996 there are nearly 100 documented cases of children endangered after exiting the home via a pet door. Nearly three-quarters resulted in injury or death. Mathew’s mother, Carol Ranfone, had no idea at the time that her son could easily escape through the small opening, but she is determined to warn other parents. Continue reading →